Jesse Helms in United Nations

On Foreign Policy: UN lives off of US; we resent UN calling US a deadbeat

Since I became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have received thousands of letters from Americans expressing their deep frustration with this institution. They know instinctively that the UN lives and breathes on the hard-earned money of the American taxpayers. And yet they have heard comments here in New York constantly calling the US a "deadbeat."

They see the majority of the UN members routinely voting against America in the General Assembly. The American people hear all this; they resent it, and they have grown increasingly frustrated with what they feel is a lack of gratitude.

On Foreign Policy: Pay UN only with condition that they REFORM

The money we spend on the UN is not charity. It is an investment from which the American people rightly expect a return. They expect a reformed UN that works more efficiently, and which respects the sovereignty of the US. Some here may contend that the Clinton Administration should have fought to pay the arrears without conditions. I assure you, had they done so, they would have lost.

Congress has written a check to the UN for $926 million, payable upon the implementation of previously agreed-upon common-sense reforms. Now the choice is up to the UN. I suggest that if the UN were to reject this compromise, it would mark the beginning of the end of US support for the UN.

On Foreign Policy: The UN serves nation-states, not the other way around

The UN must respect national sovereignty. The UN serves nation-states, not the other way around. This principle is central to the legitimacy and ultimate survival of the United Nations, and it is a principle that must be protected.

The American people do not want the UN to become an "entangling alliance." Americans look with alarm at UN claims to a monopoly on international moral legitimacy. They see this as a threat to the God-given freedoms of the American people, a claim of political authority over Americans without their consent.

On Government Reform: US decentralizes while Europe federalizes

This is why Americans reject the idea of a sovereign UN that presumes to be the source of legitimacy for the US Government's policies, foreign or domestic. There is only one source of legitimacy of the American government's policies-and that is the consent of the American people.

If the UN respects the sovereign rights of the American people, and serves them as an effective tool of diplomacy, it will earn and deserve their respect and support. But a UN that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people without their consent begs for confrontation and eventual US withdrawal.

On Homeland Security: US can intervene against dictators, regardless of UN

And when the oppressed peoples of the world cry out for help, the free peoples of the world have a fundamental right to respond.

In some cases, America has assisted freedom fighters around the world who were seeking to overthrow corrupt regimes. In other cases, the US has intervened directly. In none of these cases, however, did the US ask for, or receive, the approval of the United Nations to "legitimize" its actions. The UN has no power to grant or decline legitimacy to such actions. They are inherently legitimate.